What Are the Occupational Risks in Forestry? Results of a Long-Term Study in Slovakia.

Temporal patterns in occupational safety and health can shed light on the efficiency of safety measures companies adopt and identify when workers are prone to occupational accidents. We analyzed these patterns to identify the effects of factors such as the share of salvage logging, experience, age, daytime, weekday, and more on the number of occupational accidents at Forests of the Slovak Republic (FSR). We analyzed a database of 2963 occupational accidents and 443 occupational illnesses suffered by FSR employees and contractors. We then analyzed a subset of said database, containing 401 accident records coded according to European Statistics at Work manual. We used regression and correlation analyses and generalized linear models to test the relationship between the accident frequency and volume of harvested timber and volume of salvage logging. We used logistic regression, chi2 tests, and Cramér's V statistic to test when accidents occur within shifts, weeks, and months. We found the volume of harvested timber significantly affects the frequency of severe and fatal accidents of contractors (R 0.81; p < 0.05), whereas, for employees, the relationship was insignificant. Over time, the number of accidents and incidence rate decreased, and inexperienced or older workers were the most prone to accidents.

Trends in Workplace Injuries in Slovak Forest Enterprises.

The aim of the paper is to analyse the effect of key factors affecting the risk of workplace injuries and to identify the most common workplace accidents regarding injured body parts with respect to anthropometric data measurements of the population. Data associated with workplace accidents over the years 2000⁻2016 were drawn from the records of the state enterprise Forests of the Slovak Republic, situated in Banská Bystrica. Gathered data were processed and entered into the database complemented by the data on accidents of the self-employed working in the forestry industry. A total of 1874 workplace accidents in the state enterprise were recorded and statistically evaluated during the analysis period. A method for contingency table was used to analyse correlation between qualitative (categorical) variables in the dataset. A Poisson regression model was used to determine the injury rate. Forest harvesting is considered the most risky phase of the process of harvesting, processing, and transport. The highest number of workplace accidents (31.8% of all recorded workplace accidents) occurred during the forest harvesting phase during the analysis period. Timber skidding, with 16% of recorded accidents, was the second highest-risk phase. The workplace injury rate in the forest industry in Slovakia decreased over the course of the years 2000⁻2016. Head and facial injuries were those with the highest rate (67.1% injuries of these body parts) during the phase of harvesting and skidding.